Monthly Archives: January 2015

Kennedy Plaza reopens

Posted on January 20, 2015 by David Brussat

Kennedy Plaza reopened this morning. Bus passengers are waiting in the newly sanitized bus hub. The view above shows the blank sterility achieved by its redesign. Wind-swept vastnesses of unused space greet us now, no longer the elegant Art Nouveau … Continue reading →

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Justin Lee Miller: Architecture and the operatic angst

Posted on January 19, 2015 by David Brussat

Justin Lee Miller, the opera singer, actor and playwright, has sent me a fascinating essay that elucidates the parallels between opera and architecture, especially in regard to the handling of traditional works by their modernist interpreters. Here is the passage … Continue reading →

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See London before the Fire

Posted on January 18, 2015 by David Brussat

Six students (of history? architecture? illustration?) have produced a 3½-minute video imagining what London before the Great Fire of 1666 must have been like. The animation is lifelike but the buildings are figments of their historical imaginations, variations of the … Continue reading →

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Potent rowhouse poetics

Posted on January 17, 2015 by David Brussat

The three sets of rowhouses that I posted in “Survey: Your preferred row” a couple of days ago elicited from William Carroll Westfall among the most evocative lines I’ve read on the differences among types of architecture. He refers to … Continue reading →

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Mr. Moses’s Jones Beach

Posted on January 17, 2015 by David Brussat

Since I expect that my reading of The Power Broker (1974), by Robert Caro, about Robert Moses, New York’s master builder, will summon up more to criticize than praise in its 1,162 page vastness of biography, I will begin with … Continue reading →

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Driehaus for David Schwarz

Posted on January 16, 2015 by David Brussat

Congratulations to David Schwarz, the classical architect headquartered in Washington, D.C. I first encountered him in person on a trip to see his new concert hall in Las Vegas, and learned that he was the architect of no small number … Continue reading →

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Film of foreign cities, c. 1920

Posted on January 15, 2015 by David Brussat

Here is an amazing series of clips filmed around 1920, apparently during the travels of a U.S. Navy fleet to various port and other cities around the world. When the sailors get out of the way (as they do quite … Continue reading →

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Survey: Your preferred row

Posted on January 15, 2015 by David Brussat

Matthew Johnson, writing in ArchDaily of the furor aroused by the recent Bingler/Pedersen oped in the New York Times, the response by Aaron Betsky as mouthpiece of the American Institute of Architects, and the tart wrap-up of the brouhaha by … Continue reading →

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Brewer rocks in Fayetteville

Posted on January 13, 2015 by David Brussat

Gary Brewer of RAMSA designed a beautiful new wing for an old academic building, the Honors College (imagine that!) at the University of Arkansas, in Fayetteville a while back and I am remiss to have allowed readers to wait so … Continue reading →

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Milwaukee ex-mayor on 195

Posted on January 13, 2015 by David Brussat

I am gratified to post the comment of former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist, who revitalized the city’s downtown in the 1990s before spending a decade, I think, as president of the Congress for the New Urbanism. Responding to my post … Continue reading →

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